Watching Over Her
by luvsbitca
Summary: Thomas hated being dead but he was still watching over her. Written for the Not Prime Time 2014 challenge.


**Title – **Watching Over Her  
><strong>Author – <strong>Moonbeam  
><strong>Summary – <strong>Thomas hated being dead but he was still watching over her.  
><strong>Rating – <strong>General  
><strong>Disclaimer – <strong>I don't own anything, but oh the fun that could be had if I did.  
><strong>Warnings – <strong>Nope  
><strong>Author's Notes – <strong>Written for **the_rck** and the **Not Prime Time 2014** challenge. I had so very much trouble with this prompt. I rewrote it more than once but this ended up being the best of what I wrote. I hope this is Miss Parker enough for you…I just kept thinking about Thomas after you mentioned him. This is more of a character study of Miss Parker than anything else and I really, really hope you like it.

**Watching Over Her**  
>by Moonbeam<p>

Thomas hated being dead. Not that he was really allowed to hate anything now he supposed. He didn't miss any of the obvious things – there was still great pizza and beer. The sun was warm when he sat in the grass and he could sit inside and listen to thunder at night. All around being dead wasn't too bad but he had left behind things that he missed more than he could have thought possible.

He missed his dog and he missed his sister and her kids but he really missed her. He hadn't even really known her for that long. But it had felt like a lifetime. It had felt like he had known her for years and he had wanted to keep on knowing her for as long as he could. He had wanted a million lifetimes.

Jarod had warned him though – he had warned Thomas to be careful. Thomas just hadn't believed that someone as lovely as she was could have been mixed up in something as bad as what Jarod talked about. If only he had believed Jarod. If only he had done with the other man had suggested he do and taken her away from that life.

Thomas liked to watch over her now. He had all the time in the world now and watching her was still one of his favourite things. He had watched her chase Jarod, chase her father, chase secrets and he realised the longer he watched that she would never have left with him. There was too much tying her to the Centre, to her life there and the secrets that she couldn't walk away from. It made him sad for her – she deserved so much better than anything the people in her life gave her. He watched her now and saw them all, saw the way her father twisted and lied, the way her brother used her only when it suited him, the way Jarod dangled the truth in front of her so that she would help him.

There were so few bright spots in her life – he hoped he had been one of them. There was Broots, tied to a life he didn't want to be a part of but loyal to her…always loyal to her. Thomas saw the way he encouraged his daughter to be strong like her. He loved to see the way she was with Debbie – the fierce way she would protect the girl's childhood – not that she was a child any longer but the way she secretly paid for Debbie to go to a good school and to leave Delaware far behind.

Then there was Sydney and even after all of this time watching Thomas still wasn't sure what to make of the man. He was half captor, half father. He was the only stable, truly caring father figure in her life and yet Thomas could not understand how Sydney could have done any of the things he had for that place. Thomas couldn't even understand how the other man could live with himself. But then he saw the way that Sydney cared for her and Thomas was tempted to forgive him anything. Sydney was the only person that Thomas had seen who honestly didn't expect her to do something for him. And one of the few people in the whole world who encouraged her to be a good person and to think she could leave the Centre and that life behind her.

Thomas had hoped, for a moment, that after Carthis that she might simply allow herself to disappear – he had wondered if maybe whatever ties that bonded her to Jarod might actually be romantic and she might walk away with him. But Jarod was just as broken as she was – as twisted up in the lies and games and…everything that they had both suffered. Jarod couldn't walk away because he didn't know how to live a life that wasn't orbiting the Centre and the horrible things that place had done. Thomas could remember talking about her teenage years away from the States but even then he could hear that she'd never left Delaware behind. Thomas had wanted to watch her walk away, he'd been hoping she would walk away every time an opportunity had presented itself for years but now he just knew she was never going to leave. That place was going to end up taking her life like it took her mother's, like it had taken every good part of her and Jarod, Sydney and Timmy.

Thomas still watched her though, even after all of these years – not that years really meant much to him anymore. He watched her like he watched everyone he loved. He watched her and wished he could get back to her and shake her, shake her and shake her until she understood that she might get answers one day but they would never be whole and they would never be the _truth_. Not the truth she wanted, not the truth that would fix her, nor the truth that would take her back to infancy and convince her mother to just walk away.

He had realised as he watched her, watched her 'real' father use their new relationship that she simply didn't know how to pull herself out of the world. He could see more and more of her becoming tarnished by the things she found out, the things she knew. He could see her heartbreak when they found the new batch of Jarod clones being raised by the indestructible Brigitte though she didn't hesitate in making sure that they were safe with Jarod. He could see such growth in her even as he despaired of her ever having a moment of true peace.

And it only ever got worse. There were moments of reprieve, moments of fleeting joy, but in the balance her life was terrible. The people who should protect her were diabolical and selfish. The people she should be able to trust all had their own set of motives and didn't know how to put anyone else first. If he had still been alive he would have done everything he could to take her away but he knew she would never have left. She never loved him enough to leave the secrets in the grave where they belonged.

Thomas wouldn't stop watching her though, he couldn't…she was Miss Parker and even when he knew she should change, and even when watching her broke his heart she was still magnetic and he couldn't look away.

The End


End file.
